- Let's say you wanna build and launch your own satellite.
Well, you basically need to build
a tiny hardened spaceship
with a lot of sensitive robotic components
that can function all on its own
in the harsh environment of space.
No problem, right?
These instructions are not intuitive.
Oh, and you also need to be prepared
to never see your creation again.
Once your satellite is launched, that's it.
If it breaks, tough luck.
But what if there were a way
to give your satellite a tune up
once it's reached orbit and needs some help?
It's a dream of many satellite operators
who have lost their hardware in space,
and it's something that a fledgling industry
is trying to address.
Today, you really have to plan ahead
when building your satellite.
Above all, it needs to be super robust.
Satellites encounter wild temperature swings
from freezing to sweltering while orbiting around Earth.
They also encounter higher amounts of radiation
and energize particles coming from the sun.
We talked to two satellite repair experts,
Charity Weeden and Jonathan Goff,
about what it takes to survive in orbit.
- So you have to build in a little bit of redundancy,
have reliable parts, design it correctly,
test it, they call it the shake and bake,
shake it on a table, cook it a little bit,
see if anything falls apart that way as well.
- Even if you test and test,
things still just break when in space,
which is bad for your company's bottom line,
but also dangerous and an operable satellite instantly
becomes space junk zooming around Earth
at upwards of 17,000 miles per hour,
and that's bad for everyone else.
- And the scariest thing is dead satellites can't dodge.
So eventually, if you get enough debris up there,
the odds of a dead satellite hitting
another dead satellite increases.
- Enter satellite servicing.
It's actually not a new concept.
We've tweaked satellites in orbit before,
but people were usually involved in the process.
The Hubble Space Telescope has been upgraded numerous times
while in orbit by astronauts
who arrived via NASA Space Shuttle.
But with the shuttle now retired,
there is no way for astronauts to meet up with satellites.
The solution.
Create robots that can do what the humans do.
And that's a tad more complicated.
First, you need a satellite that can meet up
with another satellite in orbit, which is no easy task.
Remember, these satellites are moving at super high speeds.
This requires sophisticated navigation
and control software as well as sensors
that can tell the satellite how close
it's getting to another object.
The next challenge is grabbing the broken satellite.
That's even trickier because the satellites
in orbit today haven't been built to be grappled.
That's why companies in the satellite servicing industry
are really working on two things.
The repair bot and the interface between
the bot and its target.
- We basically fell in love with
the concept of magnetic grappling.
- [Loren] Jonathan's company, Altius Space Machines,
has developed a magnetic grappling plate designed
to be added to the outside of a satellite.
On the plate are identifiable markings
that make it easier for an approaching satellite
to figure out where the plate is
and attach via its own magnets.
- We have some solid-state switchable magnet technology
we're working on.
So you can stick to it with the magnet pretty well.
- Charity's company, Astroscale,
is pursuing a similar path.
One benefit of this method
is that it's easy for the two satellites
to disconnect once the update is complete.
Unlike other grappling methods, like say harpoons,
there's less chance of any extra damage
or debris created during the process.
To test out this grappling method,
Astroscale is launching a demonstration mission this year,
which will send up both a servicing satellite
and a target with the plate on it.
They wanna practice a variety of tasks,
including disposal, knocking their target closer
to Earth so that it needs a fiery death in the atmosphere.
- We'll conduct a series of demonstrations
of attaching with it, losing lock with it
and then searching for it autonomously
and then finally de-orbiting the mock piece of debris.
- Taking satellites out of orbit
this way could become crucial,
as more companies vowed to send hundreds
or even thousands of satellites into space,
knowing that a small percentage will fail.
Once connected, a surfacer could do quite a bit.
It could refuel a satellite, nudge into a different orbit,
do a software update, or even replace a broken part.
Satellites today are not built like cars, though.
There's no opening to their fuel tanks
or a hood that you can lift.
But Jonathan says it's possible
to make future generations of satellites more accessible,
and upgradeable.
- Laptops aren't really that friendly
to open up and swap components out most of the time,
but they do have a lot expansion ports on the side.
So it's like, oh, you need to plug in a mouse,
you can plug in a mouse in the USB port,
or it could be an external hard drive
or it could be some other peripheral.
So we're trying to start pushing in that direction.
- Of course, any new technology
could be used in a nefarious way.
Concerns have been raised in the press
that satellite servicing could be weaponized
and used to take out a functioning satellite
rather than fix one in need.
Charity argues that space really needs to be cleaned up,
not turned into a battlefield.
- We continue to talk to people around
the world about the benefits of having satellite servicing
and debris removal in particular.
So this is not something that we take lightly.
It's a responsibility for us to make space sustainable
for all future generations.
- In fact, she knows that
if this technology really gets going in earnest,
it could allow for much more ambitious space missions.
- Should we ever want to go to Mars,
we're gonna have to bring things with us
and things will break on the way.
So you'll need to have some sort
of repair function, refuel function
to be able to make sure that the mission gets accomplished.
- This will be a big year for satellite servicing companies
to prove that their technology is sound.
Northrop Grumman has launched a demonstration mission
to move a satellite to a different orbit.
Astroscale is prepping for its launch,
and Altius made a deal to install its grappling plates
on hundreds of satellites made by the company OneWeb,
which wants to provide internet access
through a huge constellation
of satellites in low Earth orbit.
If all goes to plan, satellite operators may breathe
a little easier when they launch their spacecraft.
If something breaks, they'll be able
to call for a tune up just like we do here on Earth.
One time my mom got me
the Taj Mahal in Lego form.
It took me like a full weekend to put it together
and then I was like no way.
Shoot.
Okay, what do I do with the little tabs?
I don't like this.